


May We Meet Again

by allonsysilvertongue



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Post Mockingjay, old effie, old haymitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 08:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5777734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsysilvertongue/pseuds/allonsysilvertongue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you need these one shots in your life? Probably not.</p><p>In an unrelated one-shot, we see how old!haymitch deals with the loss of Effie and how old!effie deals with the loss of Haymitch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Outliving Effie

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the hayffie fic that nobody needs in their life but one that I felt like writing when I woke up this morning, so here you go

 

**Outliving Effie**

Yesterday, Effie Trinket had stood in the same spot he was standing in now and had told him off for forgetting to buy the milk. Yesterday, they were both sitting on the sofa with her feet on his lap as he massaged her tired soles. Yesterday, she had asked him if he would accompany her to Town during the weekend.

Yesterday, she was alive.

He thought that she would outlive him. He had done considerable damage to his liver over the years and so he thought that between the two of them, it would be him. They had even talked about it at some point.

"You can't die on me," she had said one night. "I won't allow it."

He had scoffed and pressed a kiss on her temple. "You don't hold that kind of power, Effie."

She was scared of being alone, she said. She was scared of him leaving her behind.

"You shouldn't worry, sweetheart. We've got our family. You won't be alone. The kids are there. There's Willow and Rye to keep your time busy. Finn's there, too. You won't be alone."

They had never talked about _him_ being left behind. He learnt that it was a different kind of loneliness to be surrounded by family but still missing the one that made you complete. Effie was his and he was hers, and with her gone, his life felt empty.

He missed her every day.

There were so many things going on as her funeral was planned and people going in and out of his house - _their_ house - to make arrangements. He remained strangely detached from all this, consumed in missing Effie very hour of every day.

When things grew quiet, Willow and Rye, who had been tasked by Peeta to keep him company at all times, filled the silence in his house but their voices were not her voice. It didn't chase away the quiet quite the same way as Effie's voice would.

The day of her funeral, the sky was dark and it rained. Willow told him the earth was crying for her. _Good,_ he thought because he couldn't. He was choking on his grief and he couldn't get it out.

"Haymitch," Katniss called out.

There were soft footfalls coming up the stairs and down the hallway towards his bedroom. Still, he didn't answer her.

"Haymitch, we're all - "

She exhaled slowly and glanced behind her shoulder, most likely looking for Peeta. Peeta was better at handling things like this but Katniss also understood Haymitch in a way that her husband didn't.

"You don't need more time," she pointed out. "You're either stalling or you've made up your mind."

He remained sitting at the edge of his bed, his grey eyes that usually glinted with mirth whenever Effie said something ridiculous had lost its spark. The suit that Annie had ironed hung untouched on the cupboard door.

"Made up my mind," he told her. "I can't."

"I just want you to be sure. This is Effie. It's her - "

"I can't, Katniss," he snapped. "They'd expect me to say something. I can't fit into words what she means to me and I don't want to have to tell them how much she means to me. She knows and it's enough."

 _She knew_ , he corrected himself but he couldn't say it out loud.

"You want me to stand there and watch them lower her into the ground? You want me to be surrounded by people crying and sniffling and saying they miss her when they don't even know her. They don't know her like I do!" he raised his voice. He inhaled sharply and when he spoke next, he sounded tired and exhausted. "Why is her family here, Katniss? Why is her aunt here or her cousins? They've never fucking cared about her before."

"I don't know, Haymitch. She's well-known, her family must have read about her passing from the news. Johanna wanted to stop them but Peeta won't let her. They're still her family."

"Bullshit."

"People know Effie and what she did after the war to help the children in Panem... People remember and respect her for it. They respect her and - Haymitch, the country is mourning for her. I know you want your privacy so I've asked it from them. There won't be any cameras at the funeral. You should go."

"I can't," he shook his head.

"Don't you wanna say goodbye?" Willow tried. Her voice was soft and quiet as she peeked into the room.

Haymitch chanced a glance at the girl but even that hurt. She was still wearing the braid Effie had done for her the day she collapsed.

"Already did this morning," he mumbled.

He couldn't tell Willow that he could never say goodbye to her. The pain was too much to bear.

"Well, it's okay, then," Willow said, stepping into the room. "I am sad, too. Just like you. But I'll tell Grammy Effie for you that you love her very much. Rye and I will say goodbye for you if you can't, Grandpa 'Mitch. I promise."

Haymitch nodded mutely. He barely even reacted when Willow climbed on the bed and pressed a kiss to his cheek. The door clicked quietly as Katniss left with her daughter.

"He won't come down?" Johanna rose from her seat on the sofa.

"No. He won't go either. I don't think he can - "

"You go then," Johanna waved her hand towards the door. "Go on, Willow. Take your mother out. The others are waiting outside. I'll stay here and keep an eye out on the old man. Don't like funerals anyway - all that crying... I'll stay."

In the bedroom, Haymitch was standing in front of the vanity filled with Effie's things. He randomly picked up the lipstick and uncapped it. Her lips had touched it on the morning of her death. There were bits and pieces of her here. Haymitch reached out for the face cream and when he took the lid off, he sucked in a breath. There, an imprint of her fingers. She was gone and it was these little things that took him off guard. It was cruel how death took her away from him only to leave behind essence of her everywhere he looked.

"You thinking of putting that on?" Johanna leaned against the doorway. "I hope not though that'd make a good story."

He put the lid back on and kept the face cream carefully.

"Why are you here?"

"Tough day, right?" she flopped on the armchair in the room. "Lots of people around and driving you crazy."

"That's her place, Jo. Get up," he ordered and yanked the throw blanket from under her. He pressed it to his face. "You'll ruin the smell."

"Right – sorry. Your side?" she relocated to the bed and stretched out on it. "So, let's drink to her."

Haymitch tossed her a look. "Funny."

"I'm fucking serious," Johanna extracted a flask from her pocket. "Our drinking annoys her and I live to annoy her. She's gone but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop. That'd be an insult to her. So, come on, let's drink to her. Let's give a toast to your sweetheart. It'll make her shake her head and pinch her lips."

He could see her just as Johanna described her and his lips twitched into a smile. Accepting the flask from her, Haymitch raised it in the air.

"To Effie."

"To Effie," Johanna echoed. "For managing to live and deal with you, and still lead a long fulfilling life with grey hairs that she wouldn't stop complaining about."

"Not as long as I want her to," he mumbled and Johanna glared. Peeta, Annie and Johanna had told him again and again over the past days that Effie was happy, that _he_ made her happy and that was everything. "Yeah, fulfilling life," he nodded. "She hates tequila, swore to never touch it again. You brought tequila on purpose."

Johanna laughed out loud, a sound that was so misplaced in the house given the sombre mood that had cloaked it. Haymitch welcomed it somehow.

"My brain's somehow linked tequila to Effie Trinket. Hey, bet you didn't know she drank that stuff again during Finn's engagement party. You remember when Katniss, Effie and I took his girl out? Effie was smashed that night - wanted to show Finn's fiancé that she can be fun, too."

He snorted. "I know, Jo. She called me that night and said we should get engaged, said she wanted a ring, too."

Johanna smiled.

"She didn't remember that when she came home the next day," Haymitch finished the story. "Should have married her."

"You're both as good as married anyway. You've been living together with her - what? - twenty years now? More?"

He shrugged. "Didn't keep count. See, if she's here, she'd know. She'd have the answer."

They drank in silence. He couldn't do funerals but he could do this, drinking with an old friend and remembering her.

"This was how she wanted to go," Johanna said suddenly. "Years back when we were in prison, she said she couldn't die in there. It wasn't how she imagined - I told her to stop being so fucking stupid. She was too stubborn anyway and if she said no, she wasn't going to die that way then she wasn't. She wanted to be surrounded by family when she was old and she did."

"I want more than the thirty or so years I had with her," he admitted. "But it was more years that I ever thought we'll have."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... Please don't hate me.


	2. Outliving Haymitch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you need to read this one-shot? Probably not but well, I've already dealt with Haymitch dealing with the loss of Effie, so why not write Effie and explore that heartbreak, too?

 

**Outliving Haymitch**

The gust of wind blowing in through the window she had forgotten to close before going to bed made her shiver. Effie reached out to her right, grasping at nothing. She turned on her sides with the intention of burrowing her cold nose in Haymitch chest and have his large, calloused palms warm her back.

Her eyes flew open and her breath hitched. Reality slammed in her like a punch to her chest. She let out a heavy sigh, reached down for the sheet that had pooled around her ankle during the night and lay on her back, waiting for the warmth of the bedcovers to kick in. She folded her arms neatly across her stomach and stared at the ceiling.

The absence of Haymitch's quiet snores, his weight pressing down on the mattress, his warm breath against her skin and his heavy arm draped around her left her feeling bereaved. The empty space next to her was almost offensive.

She hated it so much and yet when she tried, she couldn't sleep anywhere but here on this bed. _Their_ bed. She couldn't sleep in the bed in their extra room; she couldn't sleep in the guest bedroom at Katniss' house. She would end up crawling back to _this_ bed in the middle of the night anyway.

It wasn't the same without him. His pillow had long stopped smelling like him. His scent was lost but it didn't stop her from sleeping on his side of the bed and using his pillow once in a while.

Kicking the bolster away, Effie willed the sting in her eyes to disappear. She remembered their constant argument over that bolster. She wanted it and he wanted it but in the end, he would let her win. Always. He would let her have it but he would wound his arm around her waist and pull her close to him, using _her_ as his bolster.

She'd let him have it if it meant having him back.

Losing Haymitch was a strange thing. It was like learning how to live again.

Nobody would wordlessly pass her the sugar as she made coffee. Nobody would pass her an empty plate for her burnt toasts. She often still held her hand out waiting for him to hand his cup but it never came and it only made her feel empty. There was no Haymitch to help her open the lid of a jar when it was closed too tight. There was no Haymitch who would reach out and help her take something from the top shelf when she struggled to reach it.

Without him, she learnt to feed the geese. Without him, she learnt to fix a plate only for herself, she learnt not to leave an extra plate of food in case he got hungry at night and she learnt not to keep her ears open in case he called for her. She learnt to live without Haymitch and she wished she hadn't had to.

Losing Haymitch was a strange thing. It was like losing a part of her, a very important piece of herself.

During quiet moments, she saw the ghost of his smile sometimes, heard an echo of his laugh and imagined his gruff voice making rude and snarky commentaries about the television show she found interesting. It hurt some days when she looked up from reading the newspaper to see he wasn't there watching her.

There were good days; days when she could go on the entire day without wishing he was here with her but there were days like tonight when she woke up cold on an empty bed with her heart full of yearning for him.

Memories of him made her sad sometimes but she held on to those memories as tight as she could because she didn't want to forget him ever. He was her world and all he left behind besides those memories was a headstone that bore his name in the cemetery.

There were also days when she was angry with him. He had always been so stubborn and that was the problem. The children had turned blue in the face asking and pleading with him to swallow his pride and use a walking stick for his bad hip but he refused again and again and again. At that age, when he slipped and fell, his body had lost its youthful vigour to heal as it once could. The effort his body took to heal him cost him his life.

When Willow came by to pick her that one winter night, she had kissed her Grandpa Mitch's cheek and promised to bring Grammy back to visit the next day.

Effie remembered that night well. Haymitch had reached out and curled his thin, bony fingers around her wrist. He stared up at her, grey eyes bright in the white sterile room of the hospital.

"Bring me home, sweetheart," he had demanded, his voice barely above a raspy whisper. "I hate it here."

"I can't Haymitch. You know I can't do that. I'm sorry," she brushed his hair back. "The doctors need to monitor your condition. Give it another week. You'll be home before you know it."

Frustrated, Haymitch let out a ragged breath and tugged on her hand. "C'mere then so I can kiss you..."

And he had kissed her, softly and gently, nothing at all like the Haymitch she knew from when they were younger. He rubbed his thumb across her cheekbone and looked at her the same way he had looked at Willow when he first held her in his arms twenty odd years ago.

Effie knew that look. She knew what it meant.

"I love you, too," she kissed him once more. "I will see you tomorrow bright and early! Rye will come with me and you'll be able to play chess with him."

The last she saw of Haymitch alive was that waning smile on his face just before she shut the door to his hospital room.

For countless nights after that, she wished she had taken him home when he asked. He wouldn't have passed on alone in the hospital, in a place where he hated. Haymitch was home and when he had asked, she couldn't even do something simple as to bring him to a place he felt at peace. She could have been next to him in the house where they had made a home and a life together.

Effie knew why the pain of missing him was more intense today than it was yesterday or the day before. Today marked a year since Haymitch left her. A year ago on this day, she lost someone so very dear to her. A year ago, the man she loved said goodbye to her and she didn't even realise.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haymitch is about 78/79 here. i hope you're all okay?


End file.
